


Anatomy Model

by DecoySocktopus



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Body Horror, Dehumanization, F/F, Learning Human Anatomy, Objectification
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-08-24 10:43:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16638416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DecoySocktopus/pseuds/DecoySocktopus
Summary: Their clothes hang oddly. Melanie can’t put her finger on why; there’s just something a bit off about the shoulders and hips, though the shapeless t-shirts do a good job of hiding whatever it is. They leave her with the impression of empty houses, white dust covers draped over anonymous furniture.Melanie makes new friends.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [track_04](https://archiveofourown.org/users/track_04/gifts).



The doorbell rings while Melanie’s in the shower.

She ignores it. The water is hot (too hot; lately she’s started to need the skin-stripping burn that keeps her thoughts from straying). She scrubs conditioner from her hair, soap from her reddened skin and from her bullet scar. She winces constantly. It leaves her too busy to think.

Someone is knocking on her front door. It annoys her even more than usual.

“What, are you deaf?” she asks the shower walls. “Does it _sound_ like I’m going to answer? Leave me alone.” They won’t hear her, whoever they are. And she’s not expecting any deliveries or visitors, which means it’s probably the Mormons. She’s too tired to go out and host a debate. They’ll go away eventually. Melanie rinses off soap suds.

The knocking continues. It takes on a predictable rhythm; _tap, tap, tap_ , silence. _Tap, tap, tap,_ silence. Every now and then, the doorbell rings again.

“Christ,” Melanie mutters. Determined Mormons, then. Or a neighbour in truly desperate need of a cup of sugar. Joke’s on them; Melanie’s pantry currently holds baked beans and stale bread and spaces where other things should be. Domestic goddess, she has never been. And even less now than usual.

 _Tap, tap, tap._ Doorbell. Irritatingly loud as Melanie shuts off the shower.

She wants to make them wait. She _would_ have done it a couple of months ago. Old Melanie, _before_ Melanie, she would have done it. These days she’s learnt to be more careful of consequences. She’s a lot more jittery than she used to be; more afraid, when she isn’t angry.

And tired. She’s always so tired. Sleep is not a good place to be anymore.

Melanie shakes herself, mentally and physically. “I’m _coming_. Just wait a second.” She wraps a towel around herself, leaving her hair to drip all over the floor. It’ll annoy her later; that’s fine. Gives her something different to be angry about. Makes a nice change.

The tapping continues as she approaches the door. And as Melanie reaches for the lock, there is a part of herself that says, _hang on. You’ve seen this movie before. Are you really going to be That Girl?_ She hesitates.

There’s no shortage of nasty things that might want to kill her. She’s seen that for herself; she’s been shot and stabbed at by ghosts, and she’s read so many of those awful statements. She’s heard Martin’s story about the worm-riddled woman at his door. Her home is not safe. Her _mind_ is not safe. She knows that.

Elias would knock, if he stopped by to visit. But not like this. Not this rhythmic tapping, at once unobtrusive and impossible to ignore. Like an audio track on repeat; Elias wouldn’t knock like that. Which is more than enough reason to slot the lock aside and open the door.

“What the hell do you want?”

“Good evening.”

“Good evening.”

“Good evening.”

Melanie blinks at the three women on her doorstep. They smile at her. Not…pleasantly, not like they’re happy to see her, or like they really badly want to sell her some Jesus, or a vacuum cleaner. They smile at her like a synchronised swimming team, all one motion in total rehearsed unison. They smile like it has no meaning, and their mouths are the only things that move. Their clothes are identical; white t-shirts, blue jeans, black shoes. Bland. Background scenery. Extras on a movie set.

Her first thought is, _cult members_. She’s seen some cults in her time; an unexpected hazard of the ghost-hunting profession, and they don’t interest her beyond the extra hits she gets on her videos. The average cult just doesn’t have much going for it. But it would explain the matching clothes, and even how similar the three women look; same haircuts, same height.

Their faces are so forgettable.

“Can I help you?” Melanie asks. She’s already regretting opening the door.

“Hello,” repeats the woman in the middle. “I’m Erika Mustermann.”

“Hello. I’m Jane Doe,” says the woman on her left.

“Hello. I’m Kari Nordmann,” says the woman on her right, and Melanie starts feeling very uneasy. There is no variation in their tones; like one bad actor putting on slightly different voices. Their expressions would be identical, if they had any. They’re like blank canvases. Clean slates. Not even the faintest dusting of chalk to give them character.

Their clothes hang oddly. Melanie can’t put her finger on why; there’s just something a bit off about the shoulders and hips, though the shapeless t-shirts do a good job of hiding whatever it is. They leave her with the impression of empty houses, white dust covers draped over anonymous furniture.

Melanie adjusts the towel around herself. Wishes she’d put something else on. “What do you want?”

“We were hoping you could help us,” Erika says. “Sarah said we should ask you.”

“Sarah said you’d be ideal,” Kari adds.

“I know a lot of people named Sarah.” Melanie starts inching the door closed. The more rational part of her mind is starting to suspect a prank; wouldn’t be the first, after she so efficiently managed to alienate herself from most of the ghost hunting community. There is quite possibly a camera crew camped out in the building opposite, glued to the windows, livestream ongoing. _Let’s see if we can make her do the psycho freak out thing again, YouTube will love it._

Probably a prank. Cruel, but she wouldn’t put it past some of the arsehole ghost hunters she’s had the misfortune of working with. Could even be someone from her old team. One of the friends she’s alienated in the past year or so. Has she really made that many enemies?

The door closes on three uncannily similar faces. Almost. One pale hand slides itself around the edge of the door, keeping it just slightly open. Melanie applies a bit of pressure; not enough to really hurt, because she seriously cannot afford a lawsuit right now, but enough to give fair warning.

There is…a wrongness about the press of the door into that hand. A lack of give. It should…squash a little bit, the skin should show some indentation, and it doesn’t. It just doesn’t.

The hand sits between door and frame like a block of stone, and from the other side someone says, “Sarah Baldwin, of course. She said you were just the person we needed.”

Nausea strikes like a punch to the gut, and now Melanie applies real pressure to the door, pushing against the unyielding hand that keeps it open. “Fuck off,” she hisses, staring sickened at the fingers curled around her door, which no longer resemble fingers so much as pale insect legs, and which she desperately doesn’t want to look at any longer. “I _don’t know her_.”

“Of course not,” says one of the women. “But she knows you. And now _we_ know you. May we come in? We have so many questions.”

Melanie pushes as hard as she can, putting her back into it. She stares wildly around her flat. Knives in the kitchen, out of reach. No gun. Funny, that a ghost could acquire a bloody gun to shoot her with, but Melanie can’t manage the same. She can’t even reach the umbrella without releasing her grip on the door.

Stalemate.

God, she is frightened. Perhaps more frightened than she’s ever been, except for-

Melanie inhales. “I’ll…I’ll call Elias,” she says, hating herself for her quaver. “I will. I work for him, I signed his bloody contract. Know what he is? Know what he can do to people?”

“Yes,” says one of the women. “But we’re not people. He can’t _see_ us. May we come in now?”

“What, so you can kill me and wear my skin?”

“Oh,” says the one Melanie thinks is Erika. More vocal than the other two; the leader. “No, that’s not us. We _make_ our skins. But it’s very difficult to get them right, and Sarah said you might be able to teach us some things. May we come in?”

“I’m a very bad teacher,” Melanie says. She keeps her back pressed to the door. There is no resistance from the other side, beyond Erika’s solid fingers and unyielding hand, stretching out past the doorway. Like mould on a wall, or a roach in the bathtub; a contaminant in Melanie’s home.

She could stay here all night if she needs to. Pressed against the door, wet hair dripping, waiting for the sunrise. And when it does-

Then what? Again, Melanie thinks of poor, hopeless Martin. Trapped in his flat for thirteen days. No one came to help him. No one is coming to help _her_. The contract she signed was not a promise of protection; it only vowed that her death, when it came, would not go unwitnessed.

“I don’t want to die,” she says, and then thinks of her father. Again. It’s such an easy mindset to slip into. Such a deceptively comfortable corner to enter, a well-worn couch to settle into as it starts to swallow her alive. A constant background to her thoughts. The Beholding’s tinnitus; _wouldn’t you like to watch your dad die again, in lurid, personal detail? Of course you would. Of course. Watch. Again. Again._

It’s not so much that she doesn’t want to die, Melanie realises. She just doesn’t want to die like _that_.

“You’re not going to die,” Erika says from the other side of the door. “We might need lots of lessons. If you teach us, we’ll keep coming back.”

“I still don’t know what the liver does,” says one of the other women; Kari, Melanie thinks.

“Or the heart,” says the third. Jane? Doesn’t matter; the names are as fake as Erika’s hand on her door.

“She’s not going to teach you about those things,” Erika says, and Melanie almost thinks she hears impatience in that toneless voice. “If you missed the classes, you have to catch up on your own time. Everyone else moved on without you.”

 _Christ,_ Melanie thinks. _Good god almighty, bloody fucking hell. This is insane._

But these things, they’re not…the same as Martin’s worm woman. Not like the violent, blood-crazed ghosts that have hunted her as she hunted them. Not like what happened to her father at the care home. Sarah Baldwin’s name means the Stranger, and as bad as that is-

It is bad.

But it’s not the same.

Adjusting her damp bath towel, Melanie unpeels her spine from the door, turns around, and opens it.

The three women stand where she left them, their expressions identically absent. Erika lowers her hand from the door frame.

“May we come in now?” she asks.

“We have so many questions,” Jane says.

 _I must be losing my bloody mind,_ Melanie thinks. “Fine. You can…come sit on the couch and ask your questions. I don’t care. Just don’t expect me to be much use; I’m not a doctor. I hunt ghosts.”

“Thank you,” Erika says; she is echoed by the other two, and then Melanie finds herself standing aside to let the three women enter her home.

They line up on the couch. Melanie very briefly thinks of sparrows on a power line, staring unblinkingly down at passing motorists. The impression doesn’t last. These creatures lack the sweetness.

Melanie brings a chair over from her dining table. She sits down in front of her audience, thinking somewhat wryly that _now_ she feels like a teacher. It’s tempting to ask if her new students thought to bring notebooks and pencils. To call the roll. But no; this is not a game. Her life may well be measured in minutes.

They watch her like artists behind canvases, eyes on the model. As if the lesson has already started, and they are even now learning from the shape of Melanie’s shoulders and tight pinch of the bath towel under her armpits.

“So,” she says to break the silence. “How about we start the questions, and then you can all go away and I can go back to…um. I have important things to do. Ironing. I need to do ironing.”

She flinches as Erika abruptly stands from the couch. In a motion that is at once both jerky and impossibly smooth, she strips off her white t-shirt, dropping it on the floor.

She’s blank underneath. Under her breath, Melanie gives a soft moan.

There is skin; pasty and featureless, corpselike, it stretches its waxy way across arms and shoulders and neck. No bra, but it’s clear why Erika doesn’t bother. She has nothing to fill it with. Her tits consist of brief, vaguely circular extrusions under her skin, sans nipple or….anything, really. There is no weight to them. Like badly moulded clay, an afterthought slapped on to give a vaguely accurate silhouette.

No navel either, Melanie notes with rising horror. Like a dressmaker’s dummy; a woman’s shape, or some of it, and none of the substance.

“Oh god,” she whispers. “Oh no. No, no. What the…”

“Is that not right?” Jane asks. She and Kari and Erika; they watch Melanie’s expression with an intensity that sickens her. Hunger and pleading and cold calculation. “We tried using pictures, but they didn’t work.”

“Erika knows the most,” Kari says. “And she showed us, but we knew it wasn’t right.” In unison, she and Jane remove their t-shirts.

They are less convincing than Erika. Their skin lacks even the vaguest of detailing; Erika at least has managed to approximate bone structure. With a jolt, Melanie realises that the other two don’t even have _fingernails_. Just indentations at the ends of their fingers, like they know something belongs there and haven’t yet worked out what. Like a test sheet with the difficult questions left blank; _I’ll come back to those later_.

“They’re new,” Erika says helpfully. “They missed the anatomy classes. So now they have to try and catch up.”

“I really want to know about the liver,” Kari says. “Can I just take a peek? I’ll be so quick-”

“We’re not _here_ for that.”

“But if she doesn’t mind-”

“I do mind,” Melanie says, high and much too loud. “Stay the _fuck_ away from my liver. I thought you said you had questions, not…not that you wanted to dissect me!”

Jane raises a hand. “Excuse me,” she says. “May I correct an error? It’s vivisection. Not dissection. The difference is-”

“ _Get out of my house right now!_ ”

“Don’t be rude,” Erika says. For a moment, Melanie thinks she’s the one being addressed; Erika’s blank gaze never wavers from her towel-wrapped form. But in the background, Kari and Jane unmistakably wilt in unison, sinking back into the couch. They mumble something Melanie thinks might be an apology.

“No livers,” Erika says. “ _Or_ hearts. You need a different teacher for those things, and now you’re wasting class time. Melanie has ironing to do.” The way she says it suggests that she has no idea what _ironing_ is, but is under the impression that it is somehow vital. It shouldn’t be funny. It’s not. And yet, Melanie has to bite down on a laugh.

She’s not sure she’d be able to stop.

“You,” she says when she can trust herself to speak coherently, “I…am I supposed to tell you what’s wrong? Because I can think of several things. You need a navel, that’s a, uh, a bellybutton, and a couple of nipples would make a huge difference-”

“A couple?” Jane asks. “Do we share them? May I have one first, please?”

“No, I mean a couple _each-_ ”

“Do they go anywhere near the liver?” asks Kari.

“Will you show us, please?”

Melanie stares at Erika. The request is so polite, so very reasonable. Melanie realises with a sinking feeling that they’re not going to leave until she gives them what they want.

Erika’s misshapen torso is nauseating to look at. Her skin is like melted wax; it rises and falls with her breathing, and Melanie can’t tear her eyes away. She’s seen corpses in the morgue with more life in them.

Defeated, Melanie lets her towel fall to her lap, tying it tight around her hips. She feels very cold without it. She really doesn’t like the way the women look at her.

“Oh,” says Erika. “I see. Like this?” Her skin gives a nauseating flex, birthing detail from somewhere beneath. She grows a navel and two nipples; sprouts them like saplings. Her tits take on a more familiar shape, though the fit of them still looks wrong.

“Sure,” Melanie says. “Yeah, sure, that’s a lot better, it’s-”

“ _Better_ isn’t perfect,” Erika says firmly. She stares down at her own chest, and then back at Melanie’s. On the couch behind her, Jane and Kari are doing the same. Melanie tries to ignore them; they’re not as good at this as Erika, they don’t have the knack. They’re so-

Incomplete. If she looks at them, she might just throw up.

She gives a startled shriek as Erika steps up into her space, and unceremoniously grabs at her chest. Instinct has her batting the hands away, while her mind gibbers at how cold, how _rubbery_ the skin feels.

“Excuse me,” Erika says. “But we need to learn the texture. Looking is not enough.”

“ _Ask_ first,” Melanie retorts. “You can’t just…just come into my house and start grabbing at me, like, like I’m some kind of anatomy model-”

“Yes,” Jane says in the background. “That’s what you are.”

“That’s what you are,” Kari echoes. Synchronised like dancers, they stand. And then Melanie is surrounded, stumbling to her feet as the chair is pulled out from underneath her. Flinching from the cold hands that touch her back and shoulders, pressing and prodding until she’s sure she feels bruises form.

Erika’s hands are back on her tits ( _so cold, they feel so wrong, like being groped through rubber gloves_ ). She pinches; from a person it would be cruel, but there’s no cruelty on her face. Just a vague sort of interest. Maybe she’s testing the weight, the shape, the temperature. Maybe she’s looking for a reaction.

“I thought they were more solid,” Erika says. “And not as _heavy_. Are they fat or muscle or both? How many bones? How many nerve endings? Does it hurt when I squash them?” She presses Melanie’s tits back against her breastbone. Pulling away isn’t an option; either Jane or Kari is right behind her, waxy chest pressed up against the vertebrae of her spine. Melanie tries to hold still.

She’s seen worse. This is not the worst thing in the world. They just want to learn, and then they’ll leave. They promised.

“It doesn’t hurt,” she says shakily, tugging the towel tighter around her hips. “It’s just uncomfortable.”

“What does that mean? Is there pain?”

“No, it’s just…squashed. Hard to breathe.”

“Ooh,” says Kari in her left ear. “Breathing! I forgot about that. Jane, don’t forget the breathing.”

“I didn’t.” Jane’s hands wrap around Melanie’s torso from behind, cupping her tits between them. She squeezes, gentler than Erika. And to her horror Melanie feels something cold…wriggle behind her. Twist and squirm and expand. A torso growing details. Copying what it finds.

She hates Jane’s hands. The fingers lack knuckles, joints, nails. They don’t look like they should bend, but they do. They’re cold and faintly damp, like unfinished clay.

One of them finds a nipple, and Melanie twitches as she’s pinched at.

“ _Hey_!”

“I found some nerve endings!” Jane says, unmistakably delighted.

“It might be an erogenous zone,” Kari says. “Is it?”

“That’s not today’s topic.” Rubbery though they are, Erika’s hands are a welcome reprieve from Jane’s; she rubs her fingertips over Melanie’s nipples, pushing them in and watching as they spring back out. Melanie tries to hold still. Pulling the towel tighter around her waist, she tries to breathe slowly. Tries not to respond.

“Does this hurt?” Erika asks, squeezing the tips of Melanie’s nipples.

“It…tickles?”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“Like small electric shocks, but not painful.”

“That’s a good description,” Kari says approvingly. She has her hands on Melanie’s abdomen now, prodding at the edges of her navel. “Does it tickle here?”

“No.” Melanie squeezes her thighs together; Erika’s hands are relentless, and Jane’s have joined them. They pinch her nipples to full stiffness and make strange, fascinated sounds. They rub at her until she can’t stop the twitches, until her breathing comes quick and she feels herself responding. She clings to the towel. Kari’s hands drop down to pluck at it.

“May I see?” she asks.

“No!”

“I want to know if you’re aroused. Was I right about the erogenous zone? I want to _know_.”

“Too bloody bad,” Melanie snaps. And then, because she must actually be losing her mind, she adds, “That’s a different lesson. Don’t jump around, you’ll confuse yourself.”

“Very true,” Erika says, and abruptly lets go of Melanie’s aching nipples. She steps back. They all do, and with a jolt Melanie realises that they’ve been making some changes.

They look real, sort of. Less ‘incredibly cheap sex doll’ and more ‘actual woman’. Erika’s torso is an exact clone of Melanie’s; she even spots her freckles, mirrored on the creature’s skin. The other two haven’t quite managed that level of detail, but they’ll pass as long as no one gets too close.

Melanie doesn’t plan to. She yanks the towel up to armpit level and clings to it, surprised by how dizzy she is. She needs to sit down. But she won’t do that in front of these three. She doesn’t want to them to see how frightened she is.

“Thank you for the lesson,” Erika says. “It was very good. We learnt a lot. We look forward to the next one.”

“The _next one_?” Bravery be damned; Melanie sits down.

“Can we do the liver?” Kari asks. “I don’t have one, it’s not fair. Fulan AlFulani said it was his favourite class.”

“We promised Sarah we couldn’t do the internal organs,” Jane says. “I think she wants those.”

“I’ll put it back afterwards-”

“I hope your ‘ironing’ goes well,” Erika says. “We’ll see you at next week’s class.” It seems to be some sort of cue. All three of them retrieve their t-shirts from the ground and pull them back on; the fabric fits more snugly than it used to, pulling tight over their pebbled nipples. Jane tugs the collar of her shirt away and peers down at her new chest. She seems pleased. They all do.

In unison, they wish Melanie a good night. And then they leave, the door gently closing behind them.

Sitting damply on her chair, Melanie starts to shiver.


	2. Chapter 2

They’re back a week later.

Melanie is expecting them. For a few days after the first _class_ , she looked for ways to avoid the next. She considered not being home. She could stay at Georgie’s, or in a hotel. She could stay in the Archives. She could swallow her pride and go beg Elias for help- but Elias will not help, and neither will the Archives. And though she has no proof to back it up, Melanie has a sneaking suspicion that these unnatural creatures will find her wherever she goes. She is their teacher. They chose her.

She has found and listened to poor, prickly Doctor Elliot’s statement. It wasn’t reassuring.

This time, she answers the door in a greying dressing gown, her hair dry from its early shower. Might as well have just worn the towel again, but she prefers the dressing gown. It makes her feel safer. It grants the illusion of control.

“Good evening,” Erika says. Kari and Jane echo her. All three are still dressed the same: blue jeans and white shirts, the latter better fitting than last time. In her waxy hands, Erika holds what appears to be a sealed clay jar. She offers it to Melanie.

Melanie doesn’t take it. “What’s this?”

“We didn’t think you’d like an apple,” Erika says serenely. “But you like ghosts, so we brought you one of them. May we come in now?”

“I- what? You brought me…a ghost?”

“Yes,” Jane says. “Though we don’t know why you’d want it. They’re not very useful.”

“We can’t learn anything from them,” says Kari. “I _still_ don’t have my liver.”

There is some very strange lettering around the base of the jar. It feels warm to the touch as Melanie accepts it, careful not to let her hands brush Erika’s. In any other situation, her response would be scepticism. _A ghost in a jar, how stupid do you think I am?_ Now, though, she considers sprinting for her hunting equipment. These creatures are…literal. They don’t lie. They probably don’t know how. Which means she’s holding a ghost.

“God,” Melanie mutters. “Right. Ghost! Okay then. Um, you’d better come in, I suppose. How long will it...stick around?”

“As long as you like,” Erika says as she sits politely in the middle of the couch. “It can’t disappear; we took some of the things it’s really attached to, and put them in the jar. Now it has to stay. Do you like it?”

“Do I _ever_ ,” Melanie says. She very carefully places the jar in the middle of her kitchen bench. It pains her to let go. She aches to fetch her video camera and start taking measurements. Or at least to draw a couple of protective circles around it.

But she is being watched, and she is well aware that no ghost poses as much of a threat to her as the three unblinking creatures lined up on her ratty old couch. They brought her a gift; she owes them.

This time, Melanie doesn’t bother with the chair. She stands in front of the couch, tightening the dressing gown around her waist. The nerves she’s been fighting all week are back with a vengeance, marshalling their troops somewhere under her breastbone. She hates the way the creatures watch her.

They make her feel less than human. Like an object. Like a plastic model in a science classroom, or a pickled specimen in a jar. The longer they stare, the more her skin starts to feel artificial.

“Um,” she says. “So, I warned you I was a terrible teacher, and I didn’t make a lesson plan.” She’s ashamed of how close she came to doing it. Professional pride is a terrible cross to bear. “Do you…want to review last week, or.”

Again, Erika is the first to stand. She doesn’t bother to remove her shoes; just unzips her ill-fitting blue jeans and pushes them down to knee level. Underneath she’s naked, and as featureless as a Barbie doll. Between her legs, unadorned skin, pale and poreless. Like a plastic mannequin. Melanie swallows hard.

“Is this correct?” Erika asks. “Our textbooks have pictures that look different, but books aren’t enough. We can’t learn from them. It has to be people.”

“Of course it does. Me, specifically, because that’s how life is these days. Um. I mean, if that’s really want you want to know about-”

“No,” says Kari. “I really want to know about the liver. We could do that instead. I brought my scalpel, and I sterilised it properly. It’s sharp.”

“It is,” Jane agrees. “It took my finger right off, see? We had to sew it back on with wire.” She holds her hand up; Melanie doesn’t look. She can’t bear to. She hears the threat, whether it’s meant as such or not. The implication is clear: _teach us what we want, or we choose a new topic. And then we’ll really start getting under your skin._

She learnt from Doctor Elliot’s statement. Keep the creatures happy, keep them interested. As long as they think they have lessons to learn, she is invaluable to them.

If she can just keep her nerve.

 _Think of the ghost_ , Melanie tells herself, and unties her dressing gown, letting it fall open. All three of the creatures _ooh_ in unison.

“Yup,” she mumbles, fighting the urge to cover herself. “Glad we got that out there. So, uh, speaking as the teacher, you need to make some…changes, or-”

“I can’t see,” Jane says. Melanie throws her a scowl, and then wishes she hadn’t; both Jane and Kari have shed their jeans and sensible shoes, and sit on her couch like white-shirted wax dolls. They lean towards her. Stare at her. Like she’s the first naked woman they’ve ever seen, and they can’t work out if they want to copy her or cut her open.

“I can’t see,” Kari echoes. “If we can’t see, we can’t learn.”

Erika doesn’t roll her eyes; maybe she doesn’t know how. But there is a certain air of impatience about her as she says, “Will you show us, please?”

It’s not unexpected; Melanie’s had a week to prepare herself for whatever humiliation they choose to inflict on her. She doesn’t argue. She doesn’t _get_ to argue. She doesn’t even dare take her time about sitting down on the living room rug, lying back and slowly spreading her legs apart.

 _Doesn’t matter,_ she tells herself repeatedly. _They don’t care, they just want to learn. Think of the ghost._ She sees shadows on the rug, circling her. Standing over her, leaning in to peer at her exposed cunt.

“The pictures looked different,” one of them says. Melanie doesn’t lift her head to see who. “Here.” Waxy fingers prod at her without warning; Melanie muffles a shocked sound. They slip between her folds, spreading her open. One of them tugs at her labia.

“The pictures were a bit different.”

“Some were the same. But some were different. Why?”

“Oh, fuck off,” Melanie says, and tries not to think about these unnatural creatures poring over porn, trying to choose the perfect cunt. “We’re _all_ different, alright? There’s…variation. No right answer. Women aren’t all the same.”

“We are.”

“You’re very warm,” says probably Erika. She cups Melanie’s cunt in one hand. She is discernible by the texture of her fingers; she actually has some. She feels a little more finished. Less like plasticine. Unlike the other two, she actually makes an effort to be gentle. “It’s hard for us to be like that. I’m not sure why.”

“I’m always cold.”

“So cold. But she isn’t. Is she aroused? I want to know what that looks like.”

“The book said to stimulate her clitoris. Did you try that?”

“Don’t you _dare_.”

“That’s not today’s class,” Erika says, but her fingers rub at Melanie’s folds, searching. She finds Melanie’s clit, prompting an unwilling shiver, a bitten-off gasp. Her hands are _wrong_ but they’re still hands, and their waxy surfaces send little shocks up Melanie’s insides. “Is that right?”

“I can’t _see_ ,” protests Kari. “Where’s the clitoris? I can’t find it.”

“Congratulations,” Melanie says. “That puts you on par with half the human population.” She is ignored; humour doesn’t seem to register with these three, occupied as they are with staring fascinated between her legs. They’re not shy about touching her. Erika’s fingers are replaced with others, less solid, more…slimy. They rub mercilessly at her clit. They part her labia and touch between them, prodding at her like a lab specimen.

She hates the sounds they make; the coos and the wondering noises and the slick, fleshy noises as they _learn_ from what they find. She hates the way their hands feel.

Melanie closes her eyes. Her face is burning. She breathes; she tries not to inhabit her body. But it’s so hard. And she worries that if she goes too far, she might come back to find that same body no longer resembles her.

“I don’t think it’s working.”

“ _Stop it!_ ”

“Try harder. Or maybe in a different direction. The book said she should be wet.”

“She’s not.”

“Then you’re doing it wrong.”

“I want to know what she feels like on the inside. Is it warm? Is it soft? How much can it fit?”

“That’s a different lesson.”

Melanie opens her eyes, throwing Erika a grateful look. And then she hates herself for it; she doesn’t _owe_ these creatures gratitude, she doesn’t need to thank them for coming into her house and violating her, bribery or not. They play with her like a toy, pressing her buttons to see what she can do.

And they are changing.

Even from her prone position, Melanie can see the shifts in Erika’s skin, in the shapes of her knees and the curve of her thighs. She’s not a Barbie doll anymore; between her legs, her cunt matches Melanie’s with an eerie accuracy, erratically shaved stubble and all. She’s good at this. She touches with methodical purpose, her fingers finding the beginnings of slick between Melanie’s legs, and rubbing at it.

“That’s interesting,” she says. “I wonder what it’s made of.”

“Um,” Melanie says. “Try the textbook? Also, are we done for the week, because it’s feeling like we might be-” she cuts herself off with a yelp as another set of fingers abandons their assault on her clit, dropping lower to try and push inside her. They are inexpert, uncertain. They can’t quite get the angle right. “ _Excuse me?_ I said, stop!”

“Why? We just want to learn.”

“Is this not the right place? The book said there should be a hole. Is it the other one?” Cold fingers press at her anus, harder as Melanie instinctively clenches up against them. She is aware of breathing a lot faster now. Of being afraid; she’s been afraid the whole time, but this is something different. This isn’t what she signed up for.

Erika gives an unmistakable sigh. “Wrong. Didn’t you finish the readings for this week? I gave them to you.”

“But she’s aroused. Looks, she’s going all wet and puffy.”

“Does that mean she’s ready for penetration? Can I do it?”

“I want to!”

“We both could, at the same time. Do you think we’d fit our fingers? Or our hands?”

Melanie snaps her legs closed, almost kneeing Jane in the face as she does so. She yanks the dressing gown back over herself, shuddering at the slick dripping down her inner thighs. It might be her. Or it might be _them_ , their unfinished fingers leaving waxy droplets in their wake. She desperately wants another shower.

“Class is over,” she snaps. Kari has the nerve to pluck at the hem of her dressing gown; before she can think better of it, Melanie reaches over and slaps the creature.

Her hand leaves an indentation in Kari’s face; like a fist mark in plasticine, a palm-shaped wedge in her cheek. She doesn’t even blink.

“But I wasn’t finished,” she says. “Mine doesn’t quite look the same as yours. I need to see again.”

“It’s not Melanie’s fault if you fall behind,” Erika says. “Ask her nicely, and maybe she’ll do a review session.”

 _Fuck off_ , is on the tip of Melanie’s tongue. She swallows hard. It’s not an option.

She’ll do the review session if the alternative is livers. She’ll do…a lot to keep them entertained, convince them that her value lies beyond the squishy, necessary bits. Bite her tongue as they grope her tits and rub their waxy fingers all over her cunt. Probably let them fuck her; she’ll do it all, and they’ll let her live. Maybe.

“I’m very sorry about these two,” Erika says; her apology is artificial, and there is no regret on her face. “They just came off the assembly line. They don’t know as much.”

“But we can learn,” Jane says, “if you teach us.”

“Even if we’re slow,” Kari mutters. The dent is still firmly embedded into her cheek. She doesn’t seem to notice it. “If we bring another ghost next time, may we penetrate you? Just a little bit?”

“We’ll take turns,” Jane says, with what she clearly thinks is generosity. “One at a time, not all at once. May we?”

“It’ll be a very good ghost,” Erika assures her. “The best we can find.”

“Nice and fresh.”

“Just for you.”

There’s not much choice in the matter. Mutely, Melanie nods. She doesn’t know what to say.

A small, terrible part of herself perks up at the mention of a second ghost. Her eyes dart to the first, sitting innocently on her kitchen bench. It might just be her imagination, but the air around it seems to…ripple. And that same terrible aspect of _Melanie_ is even now beginning to draft a script for her new episode.

 _Imagine having two_ , she thinks, and ties her dressing gown closed with trembling hands.

She won’t be given a choice. But she _will_ be well paid, and choice is thin on the ground these days. Most of the monsters she’s met aren’t big on choice. Bribery is even rarer.

And as Melanie shows the three creatures to the door (“Goodnight,” they say in unison, and she echoes them instinctively), she knows she’s going to let it all happen.

This really is her life now.


End file.
